The present invention generally relates to a printing apparatus and more particularly, to a printer of a simplified type arranged to print out through employment of a photo-sensitive and heat-sensitive paper having a diazo heat-sensitive material capable of being sensitized by light and visualized by heat as a heat-sensitive layer.
Conventionally, there has been proposed a copying apparatus utilizing a photo-sensitive and heat-sensitive paper as referred to above, and so arranged that, by projecting light onto a recording medium on which characters, figures, etc. are recorded, light reflected therefrom is read by a CCD image sensor, and the read data subjected to photoelectric conversion by said sensor is further subjected to digital treatment for thermal recording by a thermal head so as to be subsequently fixed through irradiation of light. Meanwhile, there has also been known a thermal printer so arranged that, by driving a thermal head based on recording data to be inputted as an external signal, information is thermally recorded on a photo-sensitive and heat-sensitive paper for subsequent fixing through irradiation of light.
However, in the conventional arrangements as described above, due to the construction for electrically processing the image, many electrical components such as an image reading device, an image processing device and a printing device, etc. are involved for a large size of the arrangement on the whole, thus resulting in a disadvantage, for example, that the apparatus can not be readily carried about. Moreover, since any of the reading device, processing device and printing device is generally expensive, cost of the entire apparatus tends to be so high that it is not suitable for use at home in general.